Nigerians are experiencing hard times as reforms deepen cost of living crisis

March 11, 2024

NigeriaNigerians are experiencing hard times as reforms deepen cost of living crisis.

Nigeria is currently experiencing its worst economic crisis in a generation, leading to widespread hardship and anger.

• Inflation has soared to its highest in three decades and the naira currency is slumping to record lows, pressured by acute dollar shortages.
• Prices of food, cooking gas, medicines, fuel, and public transport have shot up, squeezing household budgets.

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Escalating food prices are the major driver of inflation and widespread insecurity in food growing areas – including abduction for ransom by armed gangs, a long-running Islamist insurgency and farmer-herder clashes – is adding to the woes by keeping many farmers away from their fields.

President Tinubu’s efforts to remodel the economy have also added to the problem.

On the day he was sworn in, he announced that the long-standing fuel subsidy would be ending without concrete plans for balancing the already frosted economy.

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• “We have an emergency on our hands in terms of the social consequences of this reform, in terms of this food insecurity,” said Muda Yusuf, CEO at business advocacy firm Promotion of Private Enterprise, referring to the currency and fuel subsidy reforms.
• “With about 8 percent of Nigerians deemed food insecure, addressing rising food insecurity is the immediate policy priority,” the International Monetary Fund said on March 4. after a staff visit.

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